Anxiety can be crippling for some people and can cause a huge socioeconomic impact for those who cannot see their situation with perspective. It takes a lot of strength to carry on daily activities with excessive anxiety and below are some strategies I have found in my battle with the spectre of anxiety.
Some anxiety has an obvious cause. For example, this morning I left my glasses at home, had to leap off the ferry, and catch a bus home, grab my glasses then wait for my husband to come home to drive me in. All before a client meeting that I couldn’t be late for. Being a designer I need my glasses to do my job. There was no way around it. The subsequent anxiety built itself up. “Would I be late for my meeting?”,“would I let the team at work down?” and spiraled downwards from there into illogical self-criticism. That inner critic doesn’t help with fighting anxiety. In fact, the inner critic jumps into the fray with anxiety and makes it all worse and it is easy to lose perspective.
The other form of anxiety sits just below the surface all the time and has its roots in past events such as childhood trauma, low self-esteem, and negative self-talk. Often causal an
In order to fight back you need to develop tools and skills to prevent anxiety from taking over:
Here are some steps that can help with both kinds of anxiety:
- Focus on being in the present. This can put things in perspective.
- Give yourself a break. Try to be patient with yourself. We all make mistakes. Not every mistake or event is catastrophic.
- Sit back and try to see the situation from the outside looking in. Observe the situation as if you aren’t part of it.
- Anxiety serves a purpose. Try to get to the root of the thought pattern and ask how serious things really are. What is the likely outcome of the situation as opposed to the scenario you are picturing in your head?
- Trust in your own ability to handle the situation. You’ve got this far. You have this.
- Address the anxiety and accept it, feel it, in order to let it pass.
- Try to still the mind and clear your mental space.
- Let the anxiety go. Breathe it out, imagine it is like a negative mist in your lungs and let it leave your body.
I hope this helps you next time your anxiety gets the better of you.
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